6.  The applicant was born in 1982 and lives in Luduş, Mureş County.
7.  According to the applicant, on 30 April 2001 his employer, I.N., reported informally to two police officers, N.D. and C.B., that some money had been stolen from his house and that he suspected the applicant of the theft. The two officers rushed to arrest the applicant in the street, handcuffed him in front of other people and then took him to the police station by car. There, the applicant was kept handcuffed and the police agents hit him continuously, forcing him to confess that he had stolen the money.
The applicant signed a confession.
8.  Afterwards he was taken, still handcuffed, to his parents’ house, where the police agents performed a search. They found 1,000,000 Romanian lei (RON), which they seized and handed over directly to I.N.
9.  According to the applicant, during the search of the house the two police agents continued to hit him in front of his parents and tried to get him to reveal where the rest of the money was hidden. As he refused to do so, he was taken back to the police station, where he was hit again until I.N. took pity on him and asked the two agents to release him. He then took the applicant back to his house, where he declared in front of those present: “I took Ilie out of the police station and brought him home. He had been so severely beaten by the police that I felt pity for him.”
10.  On 2 May 2001 following an official complaint about the theft lodged by I.N., the applicant was again taken to the police station, where, it was alleged, the abuse continued.
11.  On 8 October 2001 the applicant gave a statement before Luduş Police concerning the accusations of theft against him. He retracted his previous confessions and accused the two police officers, N.D. and C.B., of beating and threatening him on 30 April and 2 May to make him confess. He lodged a complaint against them for abuse of position and wrongful arrest without a legal basis.
12.  On 13 December 2001 the prosecutor attached to the Luduş District Court sent the applicant’s complaint to the Military Prosecutor’s Office at the Târgu-Mureş Military County Court. The complaint was subsequently lodged with the Military Prosecutor’s Office attached to the Bucharest Military County Court, to be examined under Article 266 § 2 of the Criminal Code. The said provision prohibits the use of promises, threats or violence to obtain statements from a person under criminal investigation.
13.  Before the military prosecutor, two witnesses declared that they did not know anything about the case and had not witnessed the events. One witness declared that he had seen the applicant being hit by the police officers and arrested. Another witness, a neighbour who saw the applicant being taken to the police station, declared that one of the police officers had hit the applicant and pushed him into the car like a “bag of potatoes”. The accused police officers and I.N. denied having hit or threatened the applicant.
14.  On 12 June 2002 the military prosecutor dismissed the criminal complaint against the two police officers.
The prosecutor noted that the applicant did not put forward any medical evidence and considered it “hard to believe that the victim wouldn’t have gone to the forensic doctor, if he had injuries”. He also noted that the applicant had failed to make a complaint against the police officers. The prosecutor lastly noted that the witnesses’ statements were contradictory.
He concluded that it could not be established with certainty whether the police officers had done what they were accused of.
15.  The applicant lodged a complaint against that decision with the superior prosecutor. He claimed that only four witnesses had been heard during the investigation, whereas two of the most important witnesses he had put forward – his parents, in front of whom he had been beaten – had not been questioned. He also complained that he or his lawyer had not been allowed to participate in the interviews and had thus had no opportunity to question the witnesses in order to clarify the contradictory statements. He also argued that the local authorities had exercised pressure on the witnesses so they would not reveal the truth about what had happened.
16.  On 7 July 2003 the applicant was informed by a summary letter that his complaint had been dismissed. The applicant subsequently lodged a judicial complaint against the prosecutor’s decision with the Cluj Military Court.
17.  Following the demilitarisation of the police by Law no. 218/2002 on the Organisation and Functioning of the Police (“the Police Functions Act 2002”) and Law no. 360/2002 on the Status of Police Officers (“the Police Officers Act 2002”), the case was sent to the Târgu-Mureş Court of Appeal which, on 10 September 2004, ruled that the complaint was ill-founded.
18.  The Court of Appeal based its decision exclusively on the statements given during the criminal investigation, as it refused the applicant’s request for witnesses to be re-examined. It noted the contradiction in evidence, but considered that in the absence of any new written evidence and given the lack of medical evidence, it could not conclude with certainty that the accused had committed the acts in question; it therefore upheld the prosecutor’s decision.
19.  The applicant lodged an appeal on points of law, arguing that the lower court should not have relied exclusively on the evidence adduced by the prosecutors, but should have heard witnesses directly and ordered supplementary investigative measures to clarify the contradictory statements.
20.  On 24 November 2004 the High Court of Cassation and Justice dismissed the appeal and thus upheld the contested decision. It considered that as long as the criminal proceedings against the applicant were still pending (see paragraph 21 below), it was not possible to undertake parallel criminal investigations against the individuals who had conducted the investigation against the applicant. It further considered the contested decision to be lawful and well founded.
21.  On 5 November 2002 the applicant was indicted for theft of money from I.N.’s house.
22.  On 1 March 2005 Luduş District Court acquitted the applicant. In the course of these proceedings, the applicant maintained that the confession signed by him on 30 April 2001 had been made because of violence and pressure inflicted on him by the investigating officers and I.N. The district court found that the house search and the seizure of the money had been unlawful and all the evidence adduced under those circumstances had to be struck from the records. Based on statements from different witnesses, it further held that on 30 April 2001 the applicant had been subjected to acts of violence and that the confession signed by him had been made under duress from the police officers and I.N.
The judgment was upheld by a decision of the Mureş County Court of 3 October 2005 and by a final decision of the Târgu-Mureş Court of Appeal of 18 January 2006.
23.  It also appears from the case file that the money seized from the applicant’s parents’ house was returned to them by virtue of a decision of the prosecutor of 11 June 2002.